Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang resigns

Yahoo announced the resignation of its cofounder Jerry Yang today, stating that he is leaving to pursue other interests.

Yang started Yahoo in 1995 with David Filo, developing the site as an Internet guide based on work the two created as students at Stanford in 1994. Yang had served on Yahoo's board of directors since its founding, and acted as the company's chief executive from 2007 through 2009, when he was replaced by Carol Bartz.

In an official statement, Yang said his time at Yahoo "encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life."

He added, "As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future.

Thompson formerly helped PayPal to dramatically expand its operations; he was named Yahoo's chief executive earlier this month after the company dramatically fired Bartz as CEO over the phone last September.

Yahoo's Internet directory service rapidly lost ground to Google search, and the company has been unable to win back share even after buying Overture, which owned the business model Google used to achieve its success in selling paid search placement.

More recently, Yahoo has been beaten in advertising by Facebook. In 2008, Microsoft attempted to buy the company for $44.24 billion, an unsolicited bid the board rejected, claiming that it substantially undervalued the company and was not in the interest of its shareholders. Today, Yahoo's entire market capitalization is $19.14 billion.

I had hoped this wouldn't have happened, but it looks as if he's lived to regret the day he didn't sell to Microsoft.

Nah. I suspect he sees the options as having been this:

Option 1) Sell Yahoo to Microsoft and see Yahoo do badly.
Option 2) Don't sell, and see Yahoo do badly.

Personally, that's how I see it, and I suspect he had much more personal antipathy to the idea than me. So I think there's a very good chance the Microsoft thing isn't at the top of his list of regrets.

I remember when Yahoo replaced its search with that of this weird new company called Google. It took a long time for everyone to figure out the power position that Google made for itself. *THAT'S* what he regrets.

Option 1) Sell Yahoo to Microsoft and see Yahoo do badly.
Option 2) Don't sell, and see Yahoo do badly.

Personally, that's how I see it, and I suspect he had much more personal antipathy to the idea than me. So I think there's a very good chance the Microsoft thing isn't at the top of his list of regrets.

I remember when Yahoo replaced its search with that of this weird new company called Google. It took a long time for everyone to figure out the power position that Google made for itself. *THAT'S* what he regrets.

The difference is in both scenarios Yahoo would do bad, but in only one of those two scenarios would Yang's 3.7 percent ownership interest in Yahoo be worth 3 billion dollars as opposed to the 1 billion it is worth today.